The Seascape Series of Hiroshi Sugimoto

Hirshhorn Museum at Washington DC - Hiroshi Sugimoto - Seascape Series - Gelatin Silver Print



Water and air: the beginnings of life are shrouded in myth (Hiroshi Sugimoto)

Caribbean Sea, Ligurian Sea, Baltic Sea... Jamaica, Saviore, Rügen... photos made in 1980, 1982, 1996...


Living phenomena spontaneously generated from water and air in the presence of light, though that could just as easily suggest random coincidence as a Deity (Hiroshi Sugimoto)




Hiroshi Sugimoto was born and raised in Tokyo, Japan. In 1970, Sugimoto studied politics and sociology at St. Paul’s University in Tokyo. Later, he retrained as an artist and received his BFA in Fine Arts at the Art Center College of Art and Design, Los Angeles, CA, two years later in 1972. Afterward, Sugimoto settled in New York City (Wikipedia).



That photograph is what I liked mostly. As I was recording, there was a young Japanese lady who was staying in front of this blurred image. She was having a great expression of amazed veneration as she was contemplating the photo. I would have liked to capture her expression in my video; I was afraid she would have felt uncomfortable with my intrusion. So I kept her expression in my memory.



Sugimoto has spoken of his work as an expression of time exposed, or photographs serving as a time capsule for a series of events in time. His work also focuses on transience of life, and the conflict between life and death (Wikipedia).





(Hirshhorn Museum)

(Contemporary Art)